Favorite part of this was learning about the $6,000 golden shower curtains from the 2002 Tyco scandal.
My browser wrapped after shower so I was wondering where the hell is this going
DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage
21–30 of 124 posts
Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the restaurants are underpaid, maybe the food costs too much, but even if they end up charging more money, are they really going to go away like Groupon did? There is this corrosive process of these gig-economy companies, they end up making life just a little bit more shit for everyone. You'll turn a blind eye to the desperate delivery drivers, to the stress of the restaurant ow…
I'm happy to pay a fair price. But I don't want to have to deal with the terrible websites most local restaurants manage to put together, and I definitely don't want to have to phone in my order. Using an app is absolutely a better way to live. If you can make better food than your competitors, you'll thrive - the delivery services make that more true, not less. Stick to your USP and outsource everything else.
If you can make better food than your competitors, you'll thrive
I have a couple of friends who have opened and run their own restaurants - there is an awful lot more to it than that and most restaurants fail for reasons that are nothing to do with the capabilities of the chef.
Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage
#23To me, this is the key claim of the article: This is not a genuine partnership, it’s extractive. Is DoorDash extracting money from its users, the restaurants and the delivery drivers? Or is it actually providing something of value? To me, the delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats just work a lot better than calling up restaurants for delivery did in the pre-app era. Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the rest…
If we could only isolate these companies in a small geographical sub-segment and let them duke it out there, and then maybe rescue whoever emerges victorious, but otherwise declare the whole thing a Superfund site...
What I mean is: you're neglecting the collateral damage. These companies, fighting tooth and claw to win the prize (whether imaginary or real), are destroying the business space in which they operate, and adding to misery of the local communities.
> Is DoorDash extracting money from its users, the restaurants and the delivery drivers? Or is it actually providing something of value?
The way I see it, they provide a big value to its users - convenience and decent ordering experience. At the same time, they also take away a different value - consistency of quality in delivery (and make you think it's the restaurant's fault). The users are probably net ahead, but there's no free lunch (pun intended)! DoorDash & Uber Eats are providing this value by burning through the supply restaurants and abusing delivery workers. They're strip-mining the industry.
(Personally, I'm surprised it's DoorDash that's winning. I was always betting on Uber Eats - because Uber has abuse and sociopathy deep in its corporate DNA, as they did all these things and more while building their international rideshare empire.)
Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage
#24To me, this is the key claim of the article: This is not a genuine partnership, it’s extractive. Is DoorDash extracting money from its users, the restaurants and the delivery drivers? Or is it actually providing something of value? To me, the delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats just work a lot better than calling up restaurants for delivery did in the pre-app era. Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the rest…
Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the restaurants are underpaid, maybe the food costs too much, but even if they end up charging more money, are they really going to go away like Groupon did? There is this corrosive process of these gig-economy companies, they end up making life just a little bit more shit for everyone. You'll turn a blind eye to the desperate delivery drivers, to the stress of the restaurant ow…
Honestly I think a lot of things in life would shake out properly if Most Favored Customer clauses[0] were made blanket illegal by large marketplace aggregators. So that would be stores, visa, costco, walmart, ebay, amazon, uber, etc. I think they are the fairly key lynch pins that make these abusive relationships work with larger market players leveraging their position against smaller ones.
With no more MFC clauses, retailers can charge a flat out %3 tax to all credit card users and pass the fee down properly to incentivize them to not use credit cards. Restaurants can list on doordash with the extra fees baked into prices. A %10-30 discount might be enough to incentivize people to call in, etc.
I'm not a law maker, so I don't know how many industries would be screwed up by this. Does anyone think making MFC clauses illegal would screw over society or industries other than organizations that abuse them? Are MFC clauses needed because otherwise useful services would die from prisoner's dillemas? A classic one is the 'maid on order' or 'dogwalker on order' kind of startups because people collude and quickly just create a direct relationship to save money, and you lose benefits like getting ratings and other such things. It makes me wonder.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most-Favoured-Customer_Clause
Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage
#25> I’m going to end this by noting as I read through the S-1, you can’t help but develop a grudging respect for Tony Xu and his team. It’s the ultimate encapsulation of don’t hate the player, hate the game . To use a meme, "por que no los dos?" I hate both the player and the game. No one ordered Mr Xu to get into this business; there's no requirement that he abuse the living shit out of his workers and sell them up th…
Prop 22 was not the way to do it. I’m glad that terrible law was correctly voted down by California. It is clear that people want flexibility. The fact that Prop 22 had to have over 100 exclusions because it broke so many other industries reeks of bad code smell. It was a badly written law and badly written laws need to be reversed. In the end, drivers got better protections and guarantees but remained flexible and i…
Maybe you're not aware, but prop 22 actually passed and helps gig economy companies like DoorDash.
Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Prop 22 was not the way to do it. I’m glad that terrible law was correctly voted down by California. It is clear that people want flexibility. The fact that Prop 22 had to have over 100 exclusions because it broke so many other industries reeks of bad code smell. It was a badly written law and badly written laws need to be reversed. In the end, drivers got better protections and guarantees but remained flexible and i…
Maybe you're not aware, but prop 22 actually passed and helps gig economy companies like DoorDash .
[deleted]
Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the restaurants are underpaid, maybe the food costs too much, but even if they end up charging more money, are they really going to go away like Groupon did? There is this corrosive process of these gig-economy companies, they end up making life just a little bit more shit for everyone. You'll turn a blind eye to the desperate delivery drivers, to the stress of the restaurant ow…
I'm happy to pay a fair price. But I don't want to have to deal with the terrible websites most local restaurants manage to put together, and I definitely don't want to have to phone in my order. Using an app is absolutely a better way to live. If you can make better food than your competitors, you'll thrive - the delivery services make that more true, not less. Stick to your USP and outsource everything else.
Then oppose businesses like DoorDash and Uber Eats! It's because they can get away with their abusive business practices that a fairer competitor can't exist.
> If you can make better food than your competitors, you'll thrive - the delivery services make that more true, not less. Stick to your USP and outsource everything else.
I'm not convinced this is true. IME, delivery-wise, most restaurants are pretty interchangeable, and people make the decision on price. So "stick to your USP and outsource everything else" means that you should outsource cooking to a ghost kitchen and just focus on maintaining a brand. Which is something we start to see happening.
I fear the end game is still going to be DoorDash & friends just contracting or operating their own ghost kitchens, and creating hundreds of fake "brands" that are all sourced from the same kitchens. Recently the online retail sector has demonstrated it's a very viable business model. See the countless noname brands on Amazon, et al.
Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage
#28To me, this is the key claim of the article: This is not a genuine partnership, it’s extractive. Is DoorDash extracting money from its users, the restaurants and the delivery drivers? Or is it actually providing something of value? To me, the delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats just work a lot better than calling up restaurants for delivery did in the pre-app era. Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the rest…
Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the restaurants are underpaid, maybe the food costs too much, but even if they end up charging more money, are they really going to go away like Groupon did? There is this corrosive process of these gig-economy companies, they end up making life just a little bit more shit for everyone. You'll turn a blind eye to the desperate delivery drivers, to the stress of the restaurant ow…
If these apps effectively become mandatory for restaurants owners and start to squeeze them then it's a problem.
But regarding drivers I feel that we're confusing causes and consequences: If being a delivery drivers for these guys is so bad then why do they seem to still find so many people willing to do it? So it seems to me that these apps are not destroying anything there. The destruction happened before and these apps are picking up the pieces and providing jobs.
Also, it's not like being an old-style delivery driver for a pizza joint was ever a very good job...
Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage
#29To me, this is the key claim of the article: This is not a genuine partnership, it’s extractive. Is DoorDash extracting money from its users, the restaurants and the delivery drivers? Or is it actually providing something of value? To me, the delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats just work a lot better than calling up restaurants for delivery did in the pre-app era. Maybe the drivers are underpaid, maybe the rest…
> the delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats just work a lot better than calling up restaurants for delivery did in the pre-app era.
Not my experience for takeout.
Before: I called in an order, they told me how long it would take, I would arrive, it would be done.
After: I submit an order via the app. I receive confirmation and an estimated time. Arriving at the time is optimistic, so I arrive 5 minutes later. I find staff juggling half a dozen (often more) devices, one per app, and converting them to whatever their internal order system is. Frequently they have entirely missed my order and who can blame them because they've gone from phone & counter "inboxes" to more than you can count on one hand. You can ask staff which app tends to be most reliable and they'll tell you which one they pay the most attention to and that has a hope of reaching parity with phone orders.
Delivery's a little different of a beast, apps have made the market for that kind of service more "liquid" and responsive, but it remains to be seen exactly what the models look like without growth capital subsidies.
> But like music, it won't just go away, it'll be a new business structure that perhaps dominates the industry.
If this is the comparison, then be afraid, because streaming has both destroyed a huge amount of value in recordings and redirected a significant portion of remaining value towards new middlemen.
Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm happy to pay a fair price. But I don't want to have to deal with the terrible websites most local restaurants manage to put together, and I definitely don't want to have to phone in my order. Using an app is absolutely a better way to live. If you can make better food than your competitors, you'll thrive - the delivery services make that more true, not less. Stick to your USP and outsource everything else.
Then oppose businesses like DoorDash and Uber Eats! It's because they can get away with their abusive business practices that a fairer competitor can't exist. > If you can make better food than your competitors, you'll thrive - the delivery services make that more true, not less. Stick to your USP and outsource everything else. I'm not convinced this is true. IME, delivery-wise, most restaurants are pretty interchang…
There has been, and they never really get anywhere (Ex: OrderAhead). They all seem to end up at the doordash / uber eats / yelp style locus point and there might a reason we are seeing the same pattern shake out globally.